Diagnosing Mood Disorders with a Blood Test

Biomarker indicators for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and HIV have brought important changes to medical diagnosis, but mood disorders (depression, bipolar, et al) in themselves and as co-morbidities for pain, stress, memory loss and suicide have been hard won.  Here, psychiatrists at Indiana University have “analyzed the biological pathways and networks for the top candidate biomarkers, showing that circadian, neurotrophic, and cell differentiation functions are involved, along with serotonergic and glutamatergic signaling, supporting a view of mood as reflecting energy, activity and growth. . . . we tested in independent cohorts of psychiatric patients the ability of each of these 26 top candidate biomarkers to assess state (mood (SMS-7), depression (HAMD), mania (YMRS)), and to predict clinical course (future hospitalizations for depression, future hospitalizations for mania).”      MORE

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